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Kamloops.txt
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Kamloops (Eakoi/Reavers Deep 1531)
Kamloops System:
Primary: Carlo Omicron G5 V Magnitude 5.2
1 Charlo Y240000-0
2 Nanaimo Y630000-0
3 Kamloops X242471-4 (1200)
4 <belt>
9 Carlo Omicron Beta (aka CO2) M3D Companion
0 Ballyo Y210000-0
Kamloops Data:
Orbit Diameter: .70035 au
Orbital Period: 220.78 std days
Albedo: .2035
Avg Surface Temp: 11.16 C
Current Pop: 25,000+ (human)
Cities with pop >1K: 1 (Port Rupert) (1200)
Tech profile (1200):
Low Common: 4
Energy: 4
Computer: 5
Communication: 5
Medical: 4
Environmental: 4
Land Transport: 4 (2 steam railroads; few alcohol combustion trucks)
Water Transport: 3 (sailing craft)
Air Transport: 4 (3 operable blimps)
Space: Transport: 0
Personal Military: 5
Heavy Military: 4 (crude mortars)
Novelty: 8 (surviving luxury items from off-planet)
Most of the human population has always lived within 1K Km of the
capital Port Rupert, on the shore of the Fuaca Sea.
Brief History to HardTimes
(1115 UPP: 24247A-5)
Kamloops was settled by ethnic Solomani from Carillian Assembly
during the early 900s. The Kamloops Company was set up as a colonial
cooperative effort, mostly centered around a mining cooperative and
rockguana product exports: fresh meat, leather items, and blu-wool
skins.
Rockguanas were a genera of local lizard-like animals, who were hunted
and the carcases rendered for products. One species of mountain-
dwelling Rockguana had developed the fine scales into small furry
feathers for warmth in a mottled blue pattern to match the rocks of the
environment. These blu-wools were particularly sought after, and
hunted nearly to extinction. When easy hunting ended, blu-wool skin
prices rose to close most of the market. Around 940, a few families
began running a blu-wool preserve.
The colony was designed to be mostly self sufficient, so it included
various light manufactories and enough farmland for most local food
production. It also included a filter factory that built the personal
and building air conditioning filters to keep the suspended particulate
that earned the tainted atmosphere rating from harming the population.
Kamloops was never a successful place. After an initial flurry of
profit from blu-wool and 'guana leather clothing fad in the Carillian
Assembly and the Principality of Caledon, the Kamloops Company declared
bankruptcy in 948.
Some divisions of the company survived independently. Enough farmland
was kept in production by squatters to feed the population. Many
settlers stayed on planet because they could not amass enough funds to
pay the fare elsewhere. Those industries that survived formed vertical
market blocs, which formed cooperatives that began to support
themselves. Industries and settlers alike settled back into a
lifestyle supportable locally, since the majority of offworld support
dried up.
Planetary government fell into the hands of a council of industrial
leaders, who divided along lines mostly by industry and bickered enough
to earn Kamloops a "balkanized" government rating. Trade with Collins
World (in food and metals) provided enough cash for needed capital
purchases from off-planet. Visitors were few and far between.
While nominally still a colony of the Carrillian Assembly, Kamloops was
de facto non-aligned - the Assembly was not willing to send as much as
a Scoutship to garrison the planet. There was not enough value in the
place to balance the threat to Marlheim or Duncinae - nor were either
of these states interested in arousing Carrillian anger by seizing it.
Kamloops did not notice any effects of Hard Times until the ships from
Collin's World stopped picking up products.
Hard Times and Viral Effects (1130 UPP: E242451-6)
On Kamloops, most of the available high-tech sustained the personal
filter industry, run as a government monopoly. The filters were built
in a computer-managed TL8 facility from local materials. The factory
hung on by a wing and a prayer and the support of a handful of trained
technicians from off-planet until the Virus came.
The Virus arrived in 1134 on the A2 Far Trader Lehia. The Virus had
taken over the Lehia three weeks earlier. Her crew were still alive,
eating emergency rations and were upset that the controls did not
function, but the ship still travelled. The Virus made contact with
the TL8 Starport traffic control computer (in unmanned operation, but
connected to alert the government to contacts) and beamed a version of
itself down to the traffic control computer. The Lehia then made to
leave the system (as there was nothing else to infect). However,
before she could jump, her crew (in an effort to regain control)
physically detached nearly every control linkage aboard ship. They
died from asphyxiation before they could rebuild the controls from
spare parts. The Lehia fell into an eccentric cometary orbit.
(If you believe in finding needles in a haystack, she could be found if
anyone knew where to look. Her hull, engines, and basic electronics
are intact. Most control linkages are in pieces floating about her
decks.)
The Virus-copy was frustrated and perplexed by the lack of connectivity
or high tech equipment. Other than the central records computer it
reached from the starport, it found evidence of only a few other
systems it could reach. It did manage to get itself sent by tape to
the automated factory that made filters for the planetary population,
run by a TL8 computer system.
It wrecked the filter factory, forcing the machinery to run well above
its designed capacity, buring itself out. Kamloops did not stock
spares for all of the damaged machinery, so the factory was out of
commission. So were the people, thought the Virus - they just didn't
know it.
TNE: Current Conditions (1200 UPP: E-242471-4)
Kamloops has been limping along since it was visited by the Virus.
Without filters, the population began to die off after their
respiratory systems gave out from accumulation of the atmospheric
particulate. The average lifespan is now 25 to 30 terran years.
Adulthood has been forced to start early. Before the age of 15, most
children have been trained in the clan trade and are prepared to assume
the role of an adult (prepared to replace their parents, who are soon
to die). Since this has been happening for 5 short generations, this
does not seem strange to the local population. Population is back up
to 25,000 (up from a low of 12,000).
The industrial cooperatives broke down into clans based on businss
establishments. For example, the Zeiben clan is made of the families
of the original owners and workers who worked the Zeiben blu-wool
ranch. The clan structure allows a business to collect and pool their
knowledge and experience since individuals live such short lives. The
clans operate similarly to an Israeli Kibbutz: all clan members are
trained in either a "housekeeping" skill or one of the clan craft
skills. All of an individual's efforts benefit the clan, which in turn
supports all its members.
"Housekeeping" skills include all the skills needed to operate a clan
hold, such as farming/gardening, cooking, tailoring, laundry,
childcare, small-scale electronics and power systems, animal handling,
militia expertise, carpentry.
Clan craft skills are grouped around the clan industry. For instance,
a clan of herders would have expertise in herding, animal husbandry,
butchering, tanning, and leatherworking. A metal industry clan would
be expert in mining, smelting, metalurgy, smithing, and metalwork and
so on.
Clans that are too small in size, skill set, or skill quality do not
survive.
Clans are typically ruled by a council of elders. Repleacements are
selected by the council from the body of the clan. Eventually, the
council members train their children in rulership skills and devlop
into an oligarchy.
The nuclear family is de-emphasized in this culture. While children
still have some attachment to their parents, one receives more identity
and welfare from the clan. Skill training starts early - at about age
eight standard, with chores tarting before that. Education is limited
before becoming specialized in a skill. "Adulthood" comes when the
child can perform an adult's full day's work (varies by clan, but
usually between age 12 & 15). Marriages are usually arranged between
age 13 to 16 and are usually between clan members, though some cross-
clan marriages are used to seal alliances for business deals.
Marriages are mostly for life. Divorces can be granted by the clan
leader, but seldom are.
Childbirth is dangerous for the mother (3-5% die in childbirth) and
infant death is a problem. Loopies know about germ theory,
cleanliness, and anatomy, but lack sophisticated equipment and cannot
do anything about the taint.
The last of the off-planet tech has either worn out or ground to a halt
due to a lack of servicing. However, since the population is small, TL
5 electronics, machinery, power generation, and medicine is supported
at the shop level. For instance, most major settlements have wind- or
water- powered generators producing electricity for light. Clans use
radio for long distance communication.
Trade between clans is by barter exchange for goods and services. Some
people live in small market towns, where they can buy goods and
services they do not generate themselves from neighbors. Clans in the
surrounding area usually have a family/factor/embassy/store in town.
Kamloops has been visited once since the attack of the Virus. In 1165,
Port Rupert was raided by human Reavers, killing nearly 100 of the
population, destroying several houses, and taking a small amount of
stored food and hides. (The food was later jettisoned due to
accumulation of particulate). The Reavers did not stay long enough for
ben Zoa's descendants to arrive (see below).
Items for present trade: refined metal (TL5), rockguana leather goods,
blu-wool skins, rockguana meat (different tasting, but toxic over long
preiod of time. Can be detected with TL9 biomed analysis equipment).
Anyone wishing to be immortalized should visit Kamloops with the
(approximately) 50 tons of machinery and the 100 tons of equipment
needed to install it (plus the 50 trained laborers required to perform
the work) needed to get the respirator factory back in operation.
Note: The local population would not think to ask someone to fix the
factory. In fact, most local clan leaders would be against it as it
would decrease their power by increasing the ability of an individual
or single family to survive unsupported by a clan. But within 20 years
of the factory being replaced, the culture will have changed and the
factory builders will have become heros.
Hitachi ben Zoa
On the planet when the Virus struck was Hitachi ben Zoa, a brilliant
computer scientist from Carill who had been disgraced with his hand in
the till in 1123 and was relegated to this backwater rock as their
governmental computer support expert. The highest tech level on the
planet was in his home workshop but it wasn't connected to anything or
registered as a government or cooperative asset. The Virus never knew
of its existence. He was investigating the filter factory's computer
after it had malfunctioned. What The Virus had not considered was that
copied on computer tape and limited to lo-tech unconnected hardware, it
was vulnerable.
Ben Zoa spent the next 10 years (until his respiratory system gave out)
studying the Virus (literally) bit by bit, rather like a Virus Genome
project. Slowly, he uncovered all its operating secrets - the vectors
it could use, its heuristics, etc. Of course, there was no way to
communicate this information off-planet (and few people who could
understand the problem on-planet).
He eradicated the Virus from the few computers in the planetary
government computer net (since there were only a few), but not until
after it had wiped clean the banking system, causing a major recession.
(He fixed the computers more because he had little else to do and it
was part of his research into the Virus than for any other reason.)
Ben Zoa replaced input local devices with card readers and paper tape
readers to stop the Virus from coming back (no entry points). He
analyzed the Virus's software, and wrote up the analysis in a waist
high pile of plastic notebooks. With knowledge of the Virus's
innermost workings, he built Virus traps for radar and radio links to
keep it out. They were quite effective - until the machines wore out.
Ben Zoa's Legacy
Ben Zoa's analysis is kept by his descendants, with instructions to
give these to anyone from the stars. Ben Zoa figured that with a few
years of his death someone would come by. He had trouble believing
that the Virus could cause a galactic calamity. His descendants will
offer a "Virus killer" to anyone claiming to be from off-planet as long
as they promise to share it with anyone who needs it (and does not
shoot at them when they come to visit). They will arrive five days
after the group sets down (if they arrive within 50 miles of the old
starport or airport).
The analysis, six months to a year after it is put in the hands of
computer scientists, will help create effective software traps against
Virus software intrusion (better against close relatives, then less
effective as you further from V1A; see below). It will also allow for
the creation of counter-virii - programs that will insert themselves in
the Virus's operating code and cause it to to any of the following:
o force it into continual test loops, including output
(hopefully to alert a human before it takes over the system
o destroy its own storage media
o erase itself
o cease operating
o create non-operating copies
o generate an electronic pulse in its equipment, erasing itself and
destroying its hardware.
Game effects: Tools made with this information will be (damn, this
will sound like DnD) +12 vs Virus 1A. Such tools will be less
effective against relatives (look at the Virus chart in SM; for each
arrow you move to from 1A to the Virus type you are against, subtract
2. F'rinstance, tools made from the analysis would be +10 vs V 1 (1
arrow) and only +6 vs V 4 Puppeteers (3 arrows).
(Holy expletive! Ted just defanged the Virus in one shot!
Not quite.
1. This data as written here does NOT defang the Virus (though its
does make it easier to deal with).
2. The analysis is of no immediate value to players. It needs to be
brought 'home' and studied and then it can become a weapon later.)
Additional Hooks:
Some of ben Zoa's notes include output from the Starport traffic
control computer, especially from its traffic log (the Virus first used
this file as an entry vector). Nearly covered by ben Zoa's notes and
markings is a standard log entry noting the arrival of the Lehia.
About a year after ben Zoa's legacy is turned over to computer
scientists, Someone studying the raw output may notice that the Lehia
entered the system, opened communication with the starport - and
dropped out of communication and left no record of departure. There is
enough navigation information that someone could try to find her.
Ted7
From Ted7@world.std.com Sun Sep 4 22:32:28 1994